Nothing amiss in BH Loya’s death: Maharashtra to Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Maharashtra government on Monday dismissed as “hearsay” news reports alleging foul play in the death of CBI judge BH Loya. “There is no verification of facts, the reports are based on hearsay,” counsel for Maharashtra, Mukul Rohatgi, told the Supreme Court. “By a quirk you have witnesses as judges.

The judges were with the deceased. You can only order an inquiry if you reject the statements of all the judges (who were with him at the time) and consider them co-conspirators.” Rohatgi said, “There is nothing suspicious. The state is satisfied with its discreet enquiry.”

He urged the court not to order an inquiry and play into “political hands”. “The PILs (seeking a probe into his death) are based on unverified reports, and are baseless. They are based on hearsay published in newspapers,” the counsel said.


A three-judge bench led by CJI Dipak Misra is hearing a plea that a special investigation team should probe allegations of foul play in the death of Loya, who was handling the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case in which BJP chief Amit Shah was the key accused. The other judges on the bench are justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud.

Rohatgi said the insinuation being made is that a “senior political functionary” had asked the state government, the “judges” and the “administrative committee of the Bombay High Court” to do something. He was reacting to the charge that Loya’s successor had discharged Shah.